Upstate NY Gospel Magazine launched a new series during our November/December called “Messengers Entrusted With God’s Word”. For this issue we talked to Rev. Roger L. Breedlove, Teacher, Pastor and Founder of In Christ New Hope Ministry, Inc. He provided us with a great insight into the ministry and how God lead him to not only enter the ministry but lead and guide him along the way. Enjoy learning more about a servant and teacher of God’s Word – Pastor Roger L. Breedlove.
UNYGM: Pastor Breedlove, you are the founder and pastor of In Christ New Hope Ministry, Inc., so what led you to begin a ministry instead of embracing a currently established ministry? What are the demographics of your ministry?
Pastor Breedlove: Well, the reason that we actually founded In Christ New Hope Ministry was a result of my time at Aenon Missionary Baptist Church where I started this journey. I was at Aenon for about 15 years, with Pastor James L. Cherry Sr.
I gave my life to Christ when I was about at the age of 26. I remember my wife was inviting me to church and I just said that I didn’t want to go. I saw men embracing one another. Of course me being outside of the church I didn’t know that that is just how Christian brothers do. I didn’t want to go to church. I remember her saying to me, “I’m not going to ask you to go to church anymore, I have turned you over to the Lord.” I said to myself, “Yeah, right, turned me over to the Lord.” So, the only reason I went up to the church is to see who was talking to my wife.
As we started going to church I had just a hunger for God– once I gave my life to the Lord. I heard the messages about birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I just had a thirst to find out who was this person I had given my life to, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. I just wanted to find out who He was and what did all this stuff mean about being a Christian. My thirst had me going to Bible class and prayer meeting. Pastor Cherry ordained me as a Deacon and I was in that office for about three or four years, and then I had this pull on me as far as being a minister. I remember when the Lord said He wanted me to be into the ministry. One of the things I did was I said that I can’t, I can’t do that because I knew my personality. I knew some of the things I had seen from ministers so I said to the Lord, “No. No, I can’t do that.” And He said to me, “I didn’t ask you to do that. I’m calling you to teach my people.” I remember watching television, the gentleman that was on at the time, was Dr. Fredrick K. C. Price out of California. He was walking around; he had a Bible in his hand. The people in the congregation, they had their Bibles and were taking notes and I said, “Now I can see myself doing that. I can see myself teaching the Bible.” And the Lord said, “That’s what I want you to do. I want you to go teach my people.”
Pastor Cherry licensed me and we really started having a Bible class at my home, but just for my children then my siblings started coming. The Lord just started kind of leading me to that particular direction. I just wanted to preach and teach God’s word. I remember sitting in the pulpit opening up my Bible to the book of Psalms it said promotion comes from God and not from man. So me being a teacher I said, “Man that sounds real nice. That sounds real good to teach and tell people don’t trust in man, but God is the one that promotes.” Like the spirit of God was saying to me, “Hey, smarty. I’m talking to you.” I just kind of went on and a few days later some other things transpired, and I went to another scripture and it said, “Cursed is the man that trusts in man, that makes man his arm.” Being a teacher you’re always looking for ways, “How can I help God’s people? What can I teach from the word of God? What can I pull out of there that will help them?” I said, “Man that would be something good to teach and tell people, Cursed is the man that trusts in man that makes man his arm.” God said to me again, “Listen, smarty, I am talking to you.” The last thing, because I guess I was kind of a little hard-headed, He has another scripture in Psalms that says, “All men are liars.” I said, “Man that sounds something good again” That’s when I knew I wasn’t supposed to go. I was supposed to stay in Rochester and start a ministry, so that’s where that actually came from and He told me something very simple. He said, “Go teach my people how to speak My word out of their mouths.”
UNYGM: Wonderful. So what is your vision for the ministry?
Pastor Breedlove: Our vision is this, once a person receives Jesus as savior and confess Him as Lord of their life there are four things that all my messages entail: Number one, who you are in Christ; Number two, where you are in Christ; Number three, what you have in Christ; Number four, what you can do in Christ.
I know when I was growing up there was a lot talking about when you come over to Christianity you can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t wear that, you can’t go there, so everything about what you can’t do, so no one ever told me what we could do. There’s a scripture in the book, in the Bible in Hosea 4:6, and God says: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. He didn’t say that they were destroyed for not coming to church. He didn’t say that they were destroyed for not being on the usher board, the choir. He said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge – they don’t know what I have said.” We end up telling them what they can’t do all the time. So any time you tell young folk the first thing when they come to you and you give them another set of rules and regulations, they’re not coming back. My objective is to tell them about who you are in Christ, where you are in Christ, what you have in Christ, and then what you can do in Christ. When you let them know about those things they say, “Oh we can do this, we can.” So we start talking about the optimistic side of life versus the negative side of life.
Any time you give people a set of rules and regulations they are going to buck up against it. If you talk to them about a relationship with God; let them know that God will meet them where they are and take them to the place where he wants them to be. God wants you to be your own man (your own woman) in class and in style. Let them know that God loves them; that He has a plan and a purpose for their lives.
UNYGM: What is interesting is you were giving your four principles and I noticed, you know every principle you gave out says, “In Christ” giving purpose to the name of your church because In Christ there is a New Hope.
Pastor Breedlove: Right. He gave me “In Christ” and I was trying to add this and add that, and He said, “No. In Christ.” So the question comes up – What does that really mean? So it’s In Christ New Hope Ministry. It’s in the anointed one, because that’s what Christ means, His anointing – New – and the word Hope means expectancy. So that’s what this ministry is all about. In Christ New Hope Ministry is in the anointed one, new expectancy. We have an expectancy versus “I’m just going to church. I’m just going through the motions.” It’s a very exciting time.
UNYGM: Let’s talk about your community involvement. Please share with our readers more about your involvement in the Rochester community?
Pastor Breedlove: Our community involvement is this – the Bible says in 1st Timothy chapter 2, when it talks about us as the body of Christ we ought to pray for all people that are in authority then it talks about the reason being that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life. So I think that one of our responsibilities as the body of Christ is to pray for all those that are in authority, presidents and governors and all those that are in authority that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life. So I believe the reason that a lot of our cities, our communities are in the shape they are in is because as the body of Christ we haven’t been praying for them, we’ve been criticizing them. We don’t have to agree with everything they say – but we can still pray for them. I believe that we can quiet a whole lot of things that go on in our community with prayer.
One of the things we do is intercessory prayer. When April/May comes we go to the streets, meeting at different locations that the Lord actually lays on my heart. One of the places the Lord had given us was City Hall. We went inside City Hall. We prayed and laid hands on the offices and different things like that. We didn’t know that Mayor Lovely Warren was going to be running, but of course God did make the shift and she’s in office today.
Those are some of the things we do. We have been to East High School and other local schools. We have laid hands, prayed over the people, the classrooms, etc. By the end of the year, we were informed their academics went up, behavior improved and different things like that. We also have outreach at Number 19 School.
I am involved with the Mayor from the standpoint of Clergy on Patrol. We are partnering with RPD, we started a Prayer for the Mayor and for our City’s progress. We’re going into our second year now.
We have adopted the corner area of Jefferson Avenue and Brown Street as a part of our community Clean Sweep program. An area we agreed to clean up twice a year. It is a way for us to stay connected with that neighborhood. I think that we have to show ourselves. I know that Jesus talks about if you want to have friends you have to show ourselves friendly. So we need to go out and build relationships. So we go into all the world and do those things that He’s been calling us to do. Because God is in the people business you can’t say you can do ministry without doing people. I always tell our people about that one scripture John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave is only begotten son…” So love gives and love supplies the things that we need.
UNYGM: Where is your church located and your hours of worship.
Pastor Breedlove: The church is located at 155 Pinnacle Road, in the town of Henrietta. Our services start on Sunday morning at 9:30. We have intercessory prayer every second and fourth Saturday of the month from 8AM to 9AM. Morning Prayer Tuesday to Friday from 6AM to 7AM. We have a host of things going on. We have an awesome children ministry and also young adult ministry –called CAYA (Come As You Are).
UNYGM: Is there anything that I may not have asked you, or anything we covered that you want to expand upon that we didn’t mention?
Pastor Breedlove: I would like to thank my wife of 34 years, Madell Breedlove. We have five children and seven grandchildren and we have an awesome, awesome, awesome marriage. She’s my best friend. I would have never in a million years pictured that this is what we would be doing or our vocation. We love God; just want to do what He calls us to do.
